In recent years, a residential feeling has been invading offices, and work has invaded the home, but apparently these cross-market influences aren’t stopping there. Many more markets are beginning to influence one another and with them the finishes, materials, and even experiences users have within those spaces.

Mark Hirons and Meg Osman with CannonDesign, an integrated global design firm, recently shared their perspective about the increasing blending of markets.

“Data is driving our design decisions, and that is coming across all markets,” says Osman, executive director of CannonDesign’s Corporate Commercial market. “Our workplace strategy teams are now being brought into higher education, health care, (and) ambulatory care projects, which would have been thought of as outside of our expertise in the past. Now, what we are finding is that a lot of the same design principles we use in corporate are flourishing on these projects, too.”

In some ways, retail has been on the leading edge. For the last decade, retailers have had to make a compelling reason to come to a physical store when shoppers can simply go online. Now we face the same challenge in other vertical markets, too. Why go to a classroom if I can go online? Why go to work if I can meet virtually? What retail was forced to understand before other verticals is they need to make the physical location an experience. Shoppers must feel gratified, engaged and enticed to go to the store.

We see increasing challenges in the recruitment of students, employees and even medical practitioners, and that same mindset of engagement is equally critical to integrate into the design of schools, corporations and health care facilities. In this online age, it is imperative we reach an understanding of why people come to any physical location, then design those environments to celebrate and engage those consumer desires.

As we look to integrate this idea of an immersive experience, principles of hospitality design certainly come into play. Layer in the residential feeling of postures and materials that has been burgeoning in the workplace, and each of these vertical markets starts to feel, well, blurry. “Whether corporate, health care, education, or any other space for that matter, why will someone chose one space vs. another?” Hirons asks. “What are you creating that makes me want to go there, work there, be cared for there or learn there? This is what clients are realizing. Space is a 3D-manifestation of your brand and becomes a strong statement about who you are.”

Osman believes this is one of the reasons their corporate commercial group has been invited in on an increasingly diverse portfolio of projects. “Many incredibly varied organizations still have similar goals,” he says. “They are looking to attract the brightest and best talent and then sustain them. We are exploring, researching and dissecting the same things we would explore for office workers — circulation, collaboration needs, work functions and technology — but now for scientists or health care practitioners. With this we are able to take our process from corporate design and apply the thinking to new and different markets.”

Lassonde Studios

The University of Utah is an example of applying CannonDesign’s corporate commercial thought process to an academic environment. “If we think about these young, entrepreneurial ‘maker culture’ members, then look at traditional educational facilities, they’re not suited for one another at all,” Osman says.

“Our goal is five years after it opens, it’ll be an entirely different-looking building. 

CannonDesign tackled this project with the idea of creating an environment to redefine entrepreneurial education. The first 400 recruits will occupy a brand new facility in the fall of 2016 called Lassonde Studios. This innovative building embodies student residences and 20,000 square feet of “garage” space where any student on campus can build a prototype, attend an event or even launch a company. The idea is that students can live, create and literally launch companies from one space. A collaborative process between the design team, university leadership, student housing, business school representatives and members of the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute led to extensive design experimentation. The result is a nimble space built off of a flexible grid system, allowing the university to reconfigure rooms and expand as student needs change.

“Our goal is five years after it opens, it’ll be an entirely different-looking building. Universities usually build something that lasts 50 to 100 years, but when you’re an entrepreneur, things change rapidly,” says Troy D’Ambrosio, executive director of the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute, referring to the flexible nature of the space.

University of Minnesota Ambulatory Care Center

CannonDesign also applied the corporate design process to the health care realm in the University of Minnesota Ambulatory Care Center. “What we do with any project is learn the organization’s (unique) DNA and match that with appropriate products and applications to make the space work,” Hirons says. “In this case, the desire was to create a health care space as focused on the user experience as a retail environment or workplace, with the goal of not just creating a better experience for patients, but enhancing the recruitment and retention of staff as well.”

University of Minnesota Ambulatory Care Center

“In health care we begin to explore things like: How long is it taking to get to a patient? Where are the pain points in that experience? Again, the data can tell the story,” Hirons says. “Then we must ensure we are doing the right thing from a design standpoint while being fiscally conscious.”

One of the concepts that helped fuel the customer experience they wanted for patients was the Apple store. “When you walk into this new ambulatory care facility, you are met one-on-one, with only an iPad between you and the check-in staff, just like an Apple store,” Osman says. “There are no more lines or waiting areas. Each patient is escorted directly into an exam room. The whole brand and experience of this new space will be totally different from any other ambulatory care facility. When you build in these warmer, inviting, branded customer service experiences, people will choose this facility over another. No one wants to feel like a number, but this is the last place you want to feel like a number.”

It’s no secret the pace of change is accelerating in every market. As we look to the future, perhaps blurring the lines between each of these once unique vertical markets will open the door for innovation through collaborative research between studios to achieve successful cross-market design.

About the author: Amanda Schneider is a trends researcher, blogger for the Huffington Post, and the founder of Contract Consulting Group, a consulting practice serving the Contract Interiors Industry focused on business strategy, market research, and marketing content development.